Something Strange at Honeydukes
by Kai Luna
Summary: Harry is on an assignment to see why Honeydukes had decided to close its doors. Oneshot with Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita (Humanity has Declined).


Something strange was happening at Honeydukes.

It started on a pleasant spring day when a chocoball disappeared. Of course, no one paid much mind. It was only one after all, and Mr. Ambrosius Flume, the shopkeeper, chalked it up to a simple mistake. It probably rolled under a stand or something. Their auto-cleaning floors would catch it.

A week passed, and then there was another disappearance. Two jelly slugs and an ice mouse. His wife worriedly commented that they might have a thief. He promised to call a warder. That night, the ice mouse reappeared on the counter with tiny bites on its ears.

A day later they closed.

'CLOSED FOREVER,' said the sign on the door. Harry Potter tucked the paper on which he scribbled his assignment notes into his coat pocket. It was strange that Honeyduke's, a wizard world-renown confectionary shop of over three decades would suddenly close its doors. Ron had a huge fit at the office over it.

"Get over there and find out what's going on," he pointedly ordered. Harry flicked his forehead.

"If I recall correctly, I'm your superior. I give the orders around here." He paged through his assignment folder and jotted down a few notes on a scrap. "Professor McGonagall reported an odd magical aura coming from the shop. She also went to check on Mr. and Mrs. Flume down at the village but it seemed like they haven't been home for a while."

His partner rubbed his forehead. "You think they snuffed it?"

"_Ron!_"

"What? They're old!" Ron sighed and leaned into his chair. "They better not. Sugarplum's not as good and I'd rather not resort to another one of the twins' sweets..."

Harry kept that in mind as he knocked soundly on the shop door. As expected, no one answered. He whipped out his wand and pointed at the lock. "_Alohamora duo_."

There was a click and he slowly turned the knob. What he was met with was unexpected.

A myriad of colours. Streamers everywhere. The shop was lively with sounds and bustling of busywork. All sorts of sweet-making equipment were on the show floor and running, producing fudge, toffees, and gum drops. Mr. and Mrs. Flume were twirling around the room, singing nonsense merrily, either stirring a chocolate bowl or setting down baskets of sweets. What seemed like little tiny people were operating the machines: one was jumping up and down on a lever, another was tipping a mixture into a processor, and a few rode on a toy train track that spanned around the entire shop. There were easily dozens of tiny people.

"Mr. Flume! Mrs. Flume!" Harry ducked under a line of tinsel as he moved towards the owners, his expression utterly bewildered. "What is going on here?!"

"Oh Harry!" Mr. Flume exclaimed, his grin widening even further. "We and the fairies are making sweets together! Isn't this wonderful!"

"Er," the auror knitted his brows together, "that's great and all, but why are you closed… forever?"

"Cause we're going to make sweets together forever, silly!" his wife chimed. She happily poured her mixing bowl onto a pan lined with parchment. A 'fairy' immediately hopped over with a smoothing knife. Harry stared. The fairy was small, about the size of half his hand outspread, and had pointed ears. Its face was fixed into a permanent smile. It wore a tiny red pointed hat, a green cuffed shirt with large buttons, and red pointy shoes. The other fairies around him were similar.

"Ma'am," he started. "The Headmistress detected a strange magical aura within this shop. It's these 'fairies', isn't it?"

"Must be! They're just so delightful!" There was something off about her seemingly cheerful tone, and it raised the hair on the back of Harry's neck. His mouth thinned.

"I'm sorry to say this, but you know this is a violation of the Creature Protections Act. You both are willingly harboring unregistered and unidentifiable creatures, and don't have a license for this many at once. I'm going to have to bring you in for ques—"

"Human!" Harry looked down to see one of the creatures gesture to him. They could talk.

"Are you going to make sweets with us too?" More fairies joined it. One crawled out of his hair.

"We like sweets!"

"This world has cool sweets."

"And it's super fun!"

"I'd like to stay here all the time."

"All the time!"

"That sounds like a great idea."

"Motion passed!"

"Yaay!"

They all raised their hands in celebration. Harry didn't know what to make of it. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. This will probably be a headache in the making. He opened his eyes again.

There were twice as many on the table now. Did they just multiply?! His wand released from his holster and he did a flourish, preparing to encage all the fairies. Just then, the door slammed open and broke against the wall next to it.

Everyone fell silent. A woman stepped through. She had bright green eyes, lengthy light pink hair, and wore a long orange cotton dress.

"Fairies, the fun is over." Her voice was gently but stern. She instantly reminded Harry of Luna.

"Fun is over?" asked one fairy. It tilted its head.

"Yes," she replied. "You can't just take over a shop, people have jobs."

"What are jobs?"

"Jobs are things that people need to do."

"Need to do?" it echoed.

"Like breath?" another asked.

She nodded, beaming "Go home."

"No more fun?"

"I was looking forward to the old humans becoming unhinged."

"They were kind of creeping me out, though."

"Yeah, me too."

She never wavered. "Go home."

There was a loud groan throughout the shop and then one by one the fairies popped out of existence, presumably back to where they came from.

Harry opened his mouth. "Um—"

"Sorry about that," the woman said. Her smile disappeared and she sighed. "Fairies thrive on fun, add sweets to the equation and they can get out of control in just a few hours."

"You seem like you deal with this a lot," he mused. She gave him a tiny smile.

"You can say I'm a mediator."


End file.
